


Tried

by nymja



Series: Do or Do Not [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Gen, Speculation, Tumblr fill, pre-movie fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-21
Updated: 2015-12-21
Packaged: 2018-05-08 06:41:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,265
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5487482
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nymja/pseuds/nymja
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Luke smiles. “You’re a good teacher, Ben.”</p><p>His eyes dart up, and the poisonous thought hits him before he can stop it. <i>I’ll be a better one than you.</i></p><p>--<br/>A what-if prequel fic: Rey and Ben meet as children</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tried

**Author's Note:**

> Can be read separate from Try Again and Keep Trying. For the Tumblr prompt of Rey and Ben training as tiny babies in Luke's academy

She’s hiding behind Luke’s leg the first time they meet.

“This is Ben.” His uncle says.

Ben crosses his arms and doesn’t try to hide his scowl. It’s always like this—he’s always called away from training to meet whoever Luke’s picked up. And this girl isn’t even interesting. She’s barely a _person,_ hardly coming up to Luke’s waist and not speaking.

“Ben, this is Rey.”

“Okay,” he mutters.

The girl leans to the side. He sees tear-streaked cheeks and a pair of watery eyes.

“…Rey’s going to be staying with us for a little while. Why don’t you show her around?” Luke asks in his endless patient tone. Ben’s eyebrows raise. There’s countless of students, here at the temple. But they stay only as long as they want—most are adults, with jobs or whatever. Some are kids, and they go home.

Luke’s eyes meet his, and Ben knows almost instantly that this one’s doesn’t have anywhere to go to.

“ _Fine_ ,” he huffs. He’s thirteen and too old for _babysitting._ So Luke owes him. “Let’s go.”

She leans out a little more from behind _his_ uncle. Before taking a step forward.

He storms down the hall where more of the long-term students have their bunks. He manages to slow his pace for a moment—before he’s sure he hears the little footfalls of boots—before he returns to walking at full speed.

\--

Every night he hears _it_. He lies awake, looking at the ceiling, and the dark thread of anger makes its way around the cracks.

\--

Ben Solo has a shadow.

The other students are starting to tease him about it, asking if he’s going to open a nursery.

“ _What_?” He snarls, as he fails to deflect a bolt from the remote droid for the fifth time.

Around the corner, the little girl looks at the ground. Then back up.

“Does that hurt?” She asks slowly.

“Yes.”

“Why are you doing it then?”

He scowls, sets his shoulders. Turns on the remote again before lifting up his training saber. “I’m learning.”

\--

He doesn’t like her. It’s like having an annoying maintenance droid, always asking him things.

“Is Master Luke your uncle?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you call him uncle?”

“ _Because._ ”

\--

 _You won’t become your destiny, here._ It whispers. _Luke Skywalker would never allow it._

“He’s…He’s holding me back.”

_We know._

\--

He’s _trying_ to finish his chores early so he can head back to the training grounds when he senses Luke approaching.

“Ben.”

“Master.”

Luke gives a slow sigh, hands going to his hips. He’s long since asked Ben to stop calling him that. “I have a favor.”

Great. Ben sets down the parts he’s cleaning, turning to him. Luke’s starting to look old, he thinks. There’s a grey streak evident in his beard, now. And Ben doesn’t like the way his uncle is watching him—like he’s radiation about to crack and leak everywhere.

“What?”

Luke smiles, leaning against the wall. “I want you to take Rey to the training grounds in the jungle tomorrow.”

Ben snorts, “Why.”

“She’s restless here. I think you are, too. It’ll be a good exercise.”

Ben wants to tell his uncle that building an _actual_ lightsaber is a good exercise, too. But instead he bites down on the inside of his cheek. “Fine.”

“Thank you, Ben.”

The spanner in his hand slips, scoring a bloodied groove into his thumb. Ben scowls at it, before bringing it to his lips. “…Sure.”

\--

He sits, trying to meditate. It’s then that he hears that _other_ calling strongest.

 _When do I find you?_ He asks that voice, the one who has been his _true_ master when Luke refuses to show him anything.

 _I will find you._ It promises. _Soon._

\--

“Come on,” he growls. The girl has had to stop for five or six times now—always over something asinine. A rock she finds interesting. A butterfly she likes. It’s as if she’s never seen anything green in her entire life.

“Okay!” She says. With a _smile._ Like this is some adventure they’re on and not like Ben is stuck, _again,_ doing Luke’s work for him. She trots up to him, reaching up a hand.

Ben rolls his eyes, before he grabs it. “Keep up.”

“Okay,” she agrees.

He doesn’t know why Luke’s taken an interest in her—there’s at least twenty students at the temple now, all of them further along in their training than the kid. She’s too young, Ben thinks, to start training.

They walk further into the jungle, and she rambles for most of their trek—about the snakes on the ground, about the flowers. About him.

“Are you a Jedi?” She asks.

He grits his teeth. Her hand is warm in his, but it’s at least helping her from wandering off after _butterflies._ “Not yet.”

“Almost?”

“I guess.”

“Like Luke?”

He shoots her a glare. Her hazel eyes blink up at him. He frowns. “No.”

“Then like who?”

Ben thinks about the helmet. Warped and burned and melted. He’s only seen it in his dreams, but he knows it’s being held by someone who means to give it to him. His legacy. He inhales.

“Like me.”

She nods. “I’d like to be like me, too.”

He doesn’t care. But his lip twitches a little, despite himself. “Keep walking.”

“I haven’t stopped!”

“Good. Don’t.”

Her nose scrunches up, but she obeys.

Another couple hours later, they find the old training spot.

\--

It’s a cleared patch of jungle, and other than that there’s nothing remarkable about it. But it’s where Luke used to take him, when he was the kid’s age. Rey’s hand tears from his almost instantly as they step foot in it, and she _runs_ into the clearing like she’s discovered buried treasure. Pathetic.

Ben crosses his arms, waiting for her to tire herself out before he even attempts to train her in anything. He takes a few steps, before the toe of his boot rattles something. He looks down, to see a small pile of pebbles.

Ben frowns. _I want you to stack these-_

Kicks them away. They spray out, their meaning lost through the new distance between them.

\--

It takes an hour just to get her to sit still. Another to get her into meditation. He sits there and glares at the trees, as if he can hold them accountable for the fact that he’s stuck _teaching._

\--

Halfway through the walk back to the temple, she yawns. And yawns again. Ben sighs, before stopping and crouching down on one knee.

He feels her little stare on his back.

“Well?” He bites out. “Hurry up.”

Her boots dig into his sides as she climbs, and her fingers tug at his hair when she grabs his shoulders. Luke _owes_ him one, Ben thinks, as he carries Rey back to the temple on his back.

\--

 _Soon._ It’s not a whisper, anymore. It’s a promise—louder and louder with every night.

\--

It becomes routine. Take Rey to the clearing. Train. Take Rey back.

He should be doing something else. He should be gathering components for his lightsaber, or learning to direct other parts of the Force. Instead, he’s stuck watching a five year old try to levitate rocks around.

\--

“Ben! BEN!”

He blinks awake, “What?”

“I’m doing it!” Rey cries, eyes wide as she lifts her arms into the air, “It’s going!!”

Ben pushes himself up into a sitting position. Rey is standing, her hands up high, and a boulder is hovering above her.

He’s been trying to teach her that for a week now.

Something tugs at his chest. He smiles, slow and a little awkward.

She looks over and smiles back, toothy and wide.

Ben clears his throat. “I guess that’s good enough for today.”

\--

For once, she’s not sleeping as he carries her back to the temple. Her words are in his ear, lightyear a parsec, as she rambles on about that _stupid_ rock she’s so proud of.

He doesn’t drop her, though the fifth time she asks him if he saw it, he’s tempted to.

\--

“Rey’s coming along quickly,” Luke says. He grabs a pitcher of blue milk and pours Ben a glass.  Usually at dinner, it’s just the two of them.

Ben shrugs.

Luke smiles. “You’re a good teacher, Ben.”

His eyes dart up, and the poisonous thought hits him before he can stop it. _I’ll be a better one than you._

Luke’s smile fades, a little, before he pours his own cup.

\--

They train in the jungle for two more weeks. She follows him _everywhere_ now.

\--

He decides he’s not waiting. Not anymore.

He lets that other voice guide him, as he takes things apart and starts building his own lightsaber in the solitude of his room. With leftover parts, he beings to build a mask.

\--

A month later after he finishes them both, he wakes up to a single word:

_Today._

\--

He knows what he has to do. He closes his eyes, and _calls._

\--

The Knights of Ren arrive. And he watches as they cut down the Luke’s students. He doesn’t mind, or care, because they’re weak. They hold him back.

And then he hears the _shriek._

“BEN!”

He turns. Ben’s not supposed to be his name anymore, and it’s not the one he chose for himself, but he still turns.

There’s a little girl in grey, backing into the corner. A man stands before her, swinging his lightsaber down-

He doesn’t even like her. But he also doesn’t think about it as he swings. Three points of red light emit from the man’s chest before he falls.

Rey lays there on the ground, shaking and crying and curled into herself. “Where’s Luke?”

Ben- _Kylo-_ looks at her before he waves his hand.

“He doesn’t matter anymore.”

Rey slumps, unconscious.

\--

He has to get rid of her. He doesn’t know _where._ But he has to.

He plucks a place from his pilot’s mind—somewhere distant, remote. The pilot’s homeplanet—Jakku.

Kylo orders the pilot to land on an outskirt, a hole-in-the-desert trading post where no one will ever, _ever_ think to look.

\--

He finds the owner of the scrap yard, an oaf named Unkar, and it’s then he decides to let Rey wake up. Immediately she starts _crying,_ asking what’s happened. Where’s Luke. Why can’t they _go back._ He makes a quick decision.

Kylo Ren presses his hand to her forehead. She’s still crying, the tear tracts down her cheeks are stained with the sand that’s picked up by the wind.

“It won’t hurt.” He promises, his voice strained and oddly hitched. He’s not sure who he’s trying to convince. He’s never done this before. He’s never done any of this before.

“Don’t!” She cries, her shoulders heaving with sobs that are too big for the space of her small lungs. “Don’t _leave me_.”

“It won’t hurt,” he repeats. He swallows. Closes his eyes and tries not to cry. “It’s not going to hurt anyone.”

“ _Ben_ -!” She screams.

He _pulls,_ an instinctual reaction because he can’t hear _that name_ anymore. She gives a short, puff of air—like a whimper half formed or a sob about to erupt—before she’s quiet. In his mind, he _feels_ everything. She’s young, and her thoughts aren’t complicated, but he’s panicked and he’s _never done this before_ and he’s trying so hard not to make it hurt as he _takes_ things one by one:

Luke showing her insects in the jungle—letting her name the butterflies as they swarm around the temple.  
Playing, and running, and laughing as she lifts up water from a river and makes it dance in ribbons.  
The pain of a scraped knee from falling down while exploring the temple ruins.  
Talking to her doll, made from scraps of an Alliance flightsuit, and explaining to it about the Force.

The feeling of safety, as she presses her cheek to Ben’s back and dozes off while he carries her.

Kylo Ren drops his hand. Rey stands before him, her eyes glazed. Her mouth slack. He looks at the scavenger boss. Breathes in.

“You have no idea who I am,” he states.

Unkar’s face goes slack. “I have no idea who you are.”

“You’ll keep the girl fed.”

“I’ll keep the girl fed.”

“You don’t know how she got here.”

“I don’t know how she got here.”

Kylo’s eyes go from the pit boss, to Rey. She’s still standing there. Numb. Silent. Still.

Something twists. Anger floods him, and he stands, stalking back toward his ship. The hot wind form the desert snaps at him, and he’s set one foot on the gangway before he hears it.

A whisper.

“No.”

Kylo shakes.

 _“No!_ ” Rey cries out again.

He storms up the rest of the walkway.

 ** _“NO_**!” She _screams,_ “ _No_ , don’t go!”

The door closes and seals behind him.

\--

An hour later, they are on their way back into the Inner Rim and his quarters are in smoking ruins. He disengages his lightsaber.

Taking a slow, deep breath, he hits the comm button.

“ _Sir_?” Asks his pilot, the only other crewman on board for this sojourn.

Kylo’s voice is calm. Mechanical underneath the mask. “Delete our astronavigational records.”

“ _…Sir_?”

“I want no record of this trip. You will not remember where we were. You’ve never heard of Jakku.”

“ _I will not remember where we were_.”

Kylo’s thumb goes off the intercom. He sits. After another moment, he slides a hand underneath his chin, and removes the mask. Taking a deep breath, he counts to three, and presses his own fingers against his forehead.

And pulls again.


End file.
